Content is king…but content production is the evil dictator of your content marketing process.

Like a great leader, compelling content can inspire the masses to take action. That’s the upside of great content.

Like an evil, oppressive dictator, your content production process can stifle creativity and bring despair to the people of your organization.

It starts with enthusiasm and a democracy of shared ideas, but it can quickly devolve into the dark pits of departmental politics, compliance issues, draft approvals (or denials) and bad input from people who just don’t get it. Any of these can derail the process.

It sounds extreme, but it happens to businesses of all types and sizes.

So how do you overthrow the dictator?

You can only deal with oppressive content production conditions for so long before you have to revolt. Here are the general guidelines to help you overthrow your content production dictator and make your content the beloved king it deserves to be:

Set the objective: Establish it before creating any content so everyone understands the “why”. Seek inspiration: ...

Content is king…but content production is the evil dictator of your content marketing process.

Like a great leader, compelling content can inspire the masses to take action. That’s the upside of great content.

Like an evil, oppressive dictator, your content production process can stifle creativity and bring despair to the people of your organization.

It starts with enthusiasm and a democracy of shared ideas, but it can quickly devolve into the dark pits of departmental politics, compliance issues, draft approvals (or denials) and bad input from people who just don’t get it. Any of these can derail the process.

It sounds extreme, but it happens to businesses of all types and sizes.

So how do you overthrow the dictator?

You can only deal with oppressive content production conditions for so long before you have to revolt. Here are the general guidelines to help you overthrow your content production dictator and make your content the beloved king it deserves to be:

Set the objective: Establish it before creating any content so everyone understands the “why”.

Seek inspiration: Curate all those fabulous ideas* everyone has and make sure they support the campaign objective. If they do, proceed. If they don’t, move onto the next.

Make a plan and work as a team: Identify the roles (don’t lump all the work onto one person), assign the tasks and get to work!

Stick to a process: Contrary to popular belief, not everyone is a writer, designer or social media expert. Involve the right people at the right time and let them do what they do best.

Execute your plan: Let it do what it was designed to do.

Prove (or disprove) what works and what doesn’t: Track as many aspects of the campaign as possible so you know what it did.

Learn something: Once you have data, learn from it, no matter how good or bad it was.

*You never want to stop the flow of ideas, even the “bad” ones. Harness the ideas from the people who are closest to your audience and keep the flow of ideas wide open. Good communication between different teams/departments is essential because it keeps people involved in the business and working towards the same goals.

Well executed campaigns can fail. A great idea can be poorly executed. Your target audience may not care. The point is that you’ll likely need multiple attempts and lots of tweaking before you nail it. Keep your high-level objectives in mind and always look at what you can learn from the process. In other words, consider content marketing an experiment in understanding your target audience’s wants and needs at a given time.

The only way for your content to rule (in a good way) is to overthrow the forces of evil that suppress its production. And remember, if you need help on your journey to overthrow the forces of content production evil, you can always enlist Johnny Website to fight for your side!

Johnny Website is your go-to guy for content management as well as content production services.

A content manager coordinates the various types of updates for your website. He or she comes with standard skill features such as copywriting, editing, search engine optimization, HTML, CSS. This mix of writing and technical savvy is a key component in your success. If you have a a staff of content producers who need to get their stuff up on the company website in a timely manner, the content manager becomes their single point of contact.

Why else would a content manager be useful? One benefit of having a content manager is that you don’t have to train everyone on your staff on how to use the website or CMS. Not everyone is comfortable with HTML, CSS, SEO and the other technical elements and features of your website that change constantly.

Instead, your staff can keep their focus on producing content rather than haggling with technology.

Johnny Website is your go-to guy for content management as well as content production services.

A content manager coordinates the various types of updates for your website. He or she comes with standard skill features such as copywriting, editing, search engine optimization, HTML, CSS. This mix of writing and technical savvy is a key component in your success. If you have a a staff of content producers who need to get their stuff up on the company website in a timely manner, the content manager becomes their single point of contact.

Why else would a content manager be useful?
One benefit of having a content manager is that you don’t have to train everyone on your staff on how to use the website or CMS. Not everyone is comfortable with HTML, CSS, SEO and the other technical elements and features of your website that change constantly.

Instead, your staff can keep their focus on producing content rather than haggling with technology.

Quality and consistency
Another benefit is that a high level of quality and consistency can be maintained across all the pages of the site. If you’ve ever experienced the “too many hands in the cookie jar” issue, you can appreciate why this can quickly lead to a variety of problems. Even the best and most reliable CMS is subject to trouble when multiple people use it.

The content manager can coordinate and maintain the content contributors, the content schedule and provide tracking data and other helpful knowledge to help improve the content and make it more effective.

A content manager also serves as the liaison between your company’s much more technically-minded IT staff or website vendors and your content production team (the writers, marketing people and PR staff).

Level up with SEO
Having a constant stream of new content is immensely important for your website. But search engine optimization helps you take that content to a new level, resulting in more traffic and more conversions. On-page optimizations such as well-written title and description tags, for example, will always be necessary, but even the best content producers don’t know the constantly changing ins and outs of SEO. A well-understood and executed SEO strategy can pay off in significant long term traffic for your website. . . and your content manager can be the person that helps you get it there.

Let an experienced professional help you take your website to new heights! Contact Johnny Website today for pricing and more information.

You may be the classic “no, I don’t do social networks,” person who wants nothing to do with social media for your personal life, but if you run a business, abstaining from social media is not really an option anymore. You need to have a presence across the major social media sites like Facebook, Google +, LinkedIn, Twitter and (possibly) several others that might make sense for your company.

The main reason is to have and to maintain as much control as possible. Some of the more specific reasons include:

Customer service and public relations

Even if you’re a local business that’s been around for years and you’ve gotten along fine without social media all this time, the fact is, your customers will bring your business into social media one way or another whether you like it or not. Maybe a bad review or two won’t hurt your business that much, but if all your reviews tend to ...

You may be the classic “no, I don’t do social networks,” person who wants nothing to do with social media for your personal life, but if you run a business, abstaining from social media is not really an option anymore. You need to have a presence across the major social media sites like Facebook, Google +, LinkedIn, Twitter and (possibly) several others that might make sense for your company.

The main reason is to have and to maintain as much control as possible. Some of the more specific reasons include:

Customer service and public relations

Even if you’re a local business that’s been around for years and you’ve gotten along fine without social media all this time, the fact is, your customers will bring your business into social media one way or another whether you like it or not. Maybe a bad review or two won’t hurt your business that much, but if all your reviews tend to be on the negative side and there are a fair amount of them out there, the perception is going to be two-fold:

1) Maybe your business is that bad and 2) You don’t care.

Negative reviews and publicly posted complaints are, to some degree, taken with a grain of salt and can be forgiven. Everyone has a bad day and makes mistakes (customers and businesses alike) and a lot of would-be customers will understand that. But how a business handles complaints goes a long way to sway the opinions of would-be customers who are trying to determine whether or not to do business with a company.

Content marketing and search results

If your company produces content and shares it via social media, it goes a long way towards helping you in search listings. In short, it factors into SEO. Also, the landscape of search results pages has changed so that you will see posts from social media sites that relate to your search. It helps you fight the battle on multiple fronts.

Each one has its own audience

Sure, some people are active users of multiple social media sites (and mobile apps, etc.), but not everyone uses all of them. This is one big reason to create and maintain profiles across most of them. Each one offers a new audience to your business, so the more engaged you are with each one, the more your business stands to gain.

Branding and authority

A Google+ profile is important, particularly when you are building a brand and working to be an “authority” in your particular field. I would consider this an essential one to have set up. Maintaining profiles on Facebook and Twitter and others is also essential, but for different reasons because each platform represents the potential for new customers, particularly for local businesses.

Sharing

Likes, Tweets, re-tweets, +1, check-ins and the like all have some degree of influence. They can help your business in terms of visibility and popularity. Friends and followers on social networks will see that others have liked or shared something which can be an effective means of branding. It can also re-enforce your message or call a person to action.

Positive feedback and reviews

Hand written comment cards and letters are great, but it’s so much easier for a person to leave a positive comment or review of your business on any number of social sites than it is to sit down and hand-craft a letter of praise. Not only that, but a social media review that’s positive is much more valuable for your company.

Resources and performance measurement

How do you know what you’re doing is working? And what kind of time, expertise, money and effort are really required to operate social media campaigns? This is exactly where your type of business, your resources and your marketing budget come into play. One of the main points of resistance that companies will cite for not running social media campaigns is that they don’t produce a solid return on investment. This is the same issue that companies use for other types of online marketing campaigns as well. In my experience, the absence of a plan which includes clear goals is typically the reason for failure. Yes, there are some challenges, but building trust and integrity is most certainly a worthwhile investment. If executed properly, a well-planned social media campaign can not only help to increase business, but it can also be the foundation for a long-lasting, highly engaged and expanding audience for your business.

Together, we can build your social profiles and expand your business.

Contact me today to discuss what fits for your business when it comes to social media.

Google Plus Cover Photo Template (2013)

I just did a quick change of my Johnny Website cover photo on Google+, so I thought I’d help you out a bit with a Photoshop template for the image complete with a (hopefully accurate) safe area.

If you check out my Google+ profile, you can see that Google will overlay the logo image and your profile info along with a few other things over the bottom portion of your image. The attached template denotes what should be the safe zone. If you find it to be off, just leave me a comment or email me with the details and I’ll tweak the template. Hopefully this will save you a bit of time.

There’s also a PNG of the template contained in the .zip folder, too, just in case.

Google Plus Cover Photo Template (2013)

I just did a quick change of my Johnny Website cover photo on Google+, so I thought I’d help you out a bit with a Photoshop template for the image complete with a (hopefully accurate) safe area.

If you check out my Google+ profile, you can see that Google will overlay the logo image and your profile info along with a few other things over the bottom portion of your image. The attached template denotes what should be the safe zone. If you find it to be off, just leave me a comment or email me with the details and I’ll tweak the template. Hopefully this will save you a bit of time.

There’s also a PNG of the template contained in the .zip folder, too, just in case.

The shift from SEO to Content Marketing has happened.

As someone who came into the SEO/online marketing world as a copywriter in 2000, I’ve been a big believer in using quality content as the basis for any online marketing efforts. I’ve preached that point, ad nauseam, to colleagues and clients for years. After all, search engines like Google have said all along that they want the same thing that any real person wants: quality content that’s useful for actual people as opposed to keyword-stuffed pages meant for search engines.

In the past year or so, Google has taken additional steps such as the Panda and Penguin updates to weed out some of the ne’er do-wells who use link farms and loads of unnatural backlinks to try to make a website rank better. More changes like that are coming. For many years, the thinking was that more backlinks equated to higher rankings. It did work, but not so much anymore. Quality linking is still important, but the way ...

The shift from SEO to Content Marketing has happened.

As someone who came into the SEO/online marketing world as a copywriter in 2000, I’ve been a big believer in using quality content as the basis for any online marketing efforts. I’ve preached that point, ad nauseam, to colleagues and clients for years. After all, search engines like Google have said all along that they want the same thing that any real person wants: quality content that’s useful for actual people as opposed to keyword-stuffed pages meant for search engines.

In the past year or so, Google has taken additional steps such as the Panda and Penguin updates to weed out some of the ne’er do-wells who use link farms and loads of unnatural backlinks to try to make a website rank better. More changes like that are coming. For many years, the thinking was that more backlinks equated to higher rankings. It did work, but not so much anymore. Quality linking is still important, but the way in which the links are acquired is a much more significant factor than ever before.

SEO has changed.

So yes, the “SEO game” has changed. I would argue that the shift from SEO to content marketing is the most significant change in years because the focus is really, truly on the content now more than ever. The bottom line is that you can spend time and money finding ways to exploit Google and the other search engines or social sites and risk severe penalties or you can spend time and money building quality content and establishing your authority. To me, it’s a no-brainer if you value the long term viability of your company’s online presence.

And that’s why ‘content marketing’ is now a thing.

Just so we’re clear, SEO is not dead. Far from it. Optimizing websites and the content on the pages is still a significant and important step. The on-page or on-site factors are still very important. But writing, designing, building and optimizing a website is no longer a one-off, one-and-done project. You need to have a plan for how you are going to stay in front of your customers on an ongoing basis that makes sense for your business.

Here’s where social media comes into play.

People connect via social media. Lots of people, actually. They’re on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, etc. etc. You may not be on any of those social media platforms, but that doesn’t mean your prospective customers aren’t. Some are on all those, others prefer just one or two. The point is, there are customers and prospects out there for you. The question is, do you have something of value to share with them via those platforms?

More importantly, do you have something of value that they would share with others or make them take action? Social media sites are basically the new way to build links, spread your message and engage people. This shifts the focus dramatically and it has changed the game.

This is the kind of thinking you need to apply to your marketing. You may not think that your business has much to say to people, but I would argue that you’d be wrong. If you have one customer, chances are there are other customers out there who want what you have, even if it’s boring or super-specific to a small niche audience. In fact, consider that an advantage because you can become the authority in your particular field.

The main reason I am sharing this is because I still encounter people—even some in the website and marketing business—who are confused about what “SEO” is, how it works and what they should be doing about it. Some want to sell “SEO” as a bolt-on service to a website design, but it’s not that simple. Every business has unique needs and it is worth the time and cost to understand those needs and develop a solid plan that makes sense. Most businesses know they need it, but far, far too many forget that it this an ever-changing monster that can hurt you every bit as much as it can help you.

And that’s exactly why Johnny Website is here to help! Contact me today to ask questions and to figure out your plan for content marketing.

GSO or FGO – Who Knows?

Right at this moment (January 16, 2013), the Facebook Graph Search isn’t really a fully baked thing yet for the masses of Facebook users. Once it is, rest assured, there will be people like me trying to figure out the best (white hat) ways to conduct what I am going to call “GSO” (Graph Search Optimization) or maybe “FGO” for Facebook Graph Optimization. Hopefully one of these will stick! Facebook has also suggested a few tips for how a business may optimize for better results.

If you have a small business with a Facebook page, certain things will need to be done to help ensure your page’s visibility in the results of those searches. Things like check-ins and accurate location data, not to mention reviews, comments and other info will also become part of the mix. Of course, each business will have its own challenges (multiple locations, type of business, etc.). So basically. . .stay tuned for more on this!

GSO or FGO – Who Knows?

Right at this moment (January 16, 2013), the Facebook Graph Search isn’t really a fully baked thing yet for the masses of Facebook users. Once it is, rest assured, there will be people like me trying to figure out the best (white hat) ways to conduct what I am going to call “GSO” (Graph Search Optimization) or maybe “FGO” for Facebook Graph Optimization. Hopefully one of these will stick! Facebook has also suggested a few tips for how a business may optimize for better results.

If you have a small business with a Facebook page, certain things will need to be done to help ensure your page’s visibility in the results of those searches. Things like check-ins and accurate location data, not to mention reviews, comments and other info will also become part of the mix. Of course, each business will have its own challenges (multiple locations, type of business, etc.). So basically. . .stay tuned for more on this!

What’s more fun to talk about is how this will change things for your business.

At the most basic level, Facebook has a huge pile of user data that isn’t the same stuff that Google has access to, so that makes it valuable. A more capable search tool in Facebook opens up opportunities for more people to discover you and your business. It also opens up paid advertising potential in a much more compelling way than what Facebook currently offers. The sheer volume of searches is going to be huge and that means the advertising opportunities will be equally huge.

Translation: You’ll probably want to be on board sooner rather than later.

The Facebook Graph Search suggests that Facebook is honing in on how to compete with Google for the advertiser’s dollar when it comes to contextually relevant and local (paid) advertising. On top of that, it comes with the added benefit of knowing which, if any, of your friends also “like” or have things to say about a product, restaurant, company, band or whatever. It adds a new dimension to how people discover things.

The two things that make this compelling are:

Facebook has data that Google does not have.

That data is more personal to individual users than anything Google can provide at the moment.

The unique data and opportunities make the Facebook paid advertising platform that much more viable of a competitor to Google AdWords for most advertisers. Stay tuned for more as things develop!

One of the most frustrating parts about doing website design is not having any cool visuals with which to work. And too often, the stock photo websites either don’t have just the right image you want or they have the same images that everyone else already has. That’s no fun! But I guess that’s why they call it “stock” photography.

Sometimes it’s just better to have custom photos to use on your website. Not only can we capture some great photos that fit your site perfectly, but they can also be used in other marketing collateral for you and/or your business. Quality photos can add a great touch to your website.

And if you’re a web designer looking for specialized photos – contact me and we’ll see what we can do. If you’re going to shell out the cash for stock photos, you may as well get the shots you really want to use in your design, right?

One of the most frustrating parts about doing website design is not having any cool visuals with which to work. And too often, the stock photo websites either don’t have just the right image you want or they have the same images that everyone else already has. That’s no fun! But I guess that’s why they call it “stock” photography.

Sometimes it’s just better to have custom photos to use on your website. Not only can we capture some great photos that fit your site perfectly, but they can also be used in other marketing collateral for you and/or your business. Quality photos can add a great touch to your website.

And if you’re a web designer looking for specialized photos – contact me and we’ll see what we can do. If you’re going to shell out the cash for stock photos, you may as well get the shots you really want to use in your design, right?

You can spend all the money you want on search engine optimization, online marketing, press releases and cool website designs, but if your site has poorly written copy that doesn’t make people want to be your customers, then what’s the point?

It’s like fishing without hooks.

You want customers, don’t you? You want them to click or to take action in some way, don’t you?

And just like with fishing, there are two main components that make an online marketing campaign successful.

Part One: Attract the Fish. You can use all types of bait and presentation tactics to get the fish to come to you. You can even use high-tech toys to find the fish and go to them. You’re working to put yourself in the best position near the fish that you ultimately hope to catch, which brings us to the second part. . .

Part Two: Hook the Fish. You’ve spent all the time, energy and money to find the fish and to help the fish find you. Now that they’re here and ready ...

You can spend all the money you want on search engine optimization, online marketing, press releases and cool website designs, but if your site has poorly written copy that doesn’t make people want to be your customers, then what’s the point?

It’s like fishing without hooks.

You want customers, don’t you? You want them to click or to take action in some way, don’t you?

And just like with fishing, there are two main components that make an online marketing campaign successful.

Part One: Attract the Fish.
You can use all types of bait and presentation tactics to get the fish to come to you. You can even use high-tech toys to find the fish and go to them. You’re working to put yourself in the best position near the fish that you ultimately hope to catch, which brings us to the second part. . .

Part Two: Hook the Fish.
You’ve spent all the time, energy and money to find the fish and to help the fish find you. Now that they’re here and ready to bite, all you have to do is get them in the boat.

So how do we hook these fish?

We entice them. We make them feel as if there is no other option for them but the one staring them right in the face. We flip that switch that makes them act.

Compelling copy is the key to converting visitors into customers. The copy makes your case. The copy shows your value. A picture might very well be worth a thousand words, but you definitely don’t need a thousand words to get a visitor to your website to take action. That picture might set the mood or offer a glimpse of what they want. But it is the well written copy which guides people down the path you want them to take – the path to being your customer.

Your most motivated customers are going to be the ones who seek you out via the search engines. Your website needs to give them every reason to go with you and not your competition. Your website copy can help attract them via the search engines and, if done well, will help them convert once they find you.

And it just so happens that I can help you do just that. After all, I am Johnny Website

When it comes to making your website successful, knowing your audience is the key to producing compelling copy that gets them to take action. Tough to do, but when you get it, you can get them.

I have a knack for this sort of thing which dates back well into my personal history. One example was during my senior year of high school, when I had to write a paper about an artist who inspired me. The assignment came from my humanities teacher as we were studying artists like Michelangelo and dudes like that. As I recall, we each had to choose a different artist (no repeats) probably because my teacher got bored of reading the same stuff all the time.

So I thought about it and for whatever reason, I chose not to go the “traditional route” and pick one of the most common artists as most of the rest of the class did. They mostly chose artists like Picaso, Matisse, Warhol and the like. I turned in a paper about Todd McFarlane, who, at the ...

When it comes to making your website successful, knowing your audience is the key to producing compelling copy that gets them to take action. Tough to do, but when you get it, you can get them.

I have a knack for this sort of thing which dates back well into my personal history. One example was during my senior year of high school, when I had to write a paper about an artist who inspired me. The assignment came from my humanities teacher as we were studying artists like Michelangelo and dudes like that. As I recall, we each had to choose a different artist (no repeats) probably because my teacher got bored of reading the same stuff all the time.

So I thought about it and for whatever reason, I chose not to go the “traditional route” and pick one of the most common artists as most of the rest of the class did. They mostly chose artists like Picaso, Matisse, Warhol and the like. I turned in a paper about Todd McFarlane, who, at the time, was only “famous” to people who read Spider-Man comic books (way before Spawn or all his later endeavors).

I thought he did amazing work. His art was detailed and bad-ass and totally different from anything I’d seen before. So I cranked out a paper about him and how his work inspired me. This was also pre-Internet, mind you, so I couldn’t just search for info about him. I took everything I had from my collection of Spider-Man comic books and whatever general info I could scrounge from the library to fill in the rest. It wasn’t a long paper, but I wound up giving my teacher something completely different than what everyone else gave her.

And it stood out.

Technically, it didn’t even meet the exact requirements of the assignment, but I took a shot. I was inspired to write it. I knew she knew nothing about him, but clearly, she was looking for something fresh to read.

My paper did the trick. She gave me a glowing review and a big, fat A+ to top it off.

The point is, if you know your audience has a need or even just a craving for something, then give it to them. They’ll eat it right up (and by that I mean take action to call you or buy from you or subscribe to your blog, etc.).

]]>http://johnnywebsite.com/a-knack-for-knowing-an-audience/feed/0SEO the Seeds of Victoryhttp://johnnywebsite.com/seo-the-seeds-of-victory/
http://johnnywebsite.com/seo-the-seeds-of-victory/#respondTue, 04 May 2010 20:48:49 +0000http://johnnyweb.wpengine.com/?p=52SEO the Seeds of Victory

Get it. . . “SEO” instead of “Sow” the seeds of victory. Yeah. I know you got it.

Anyway, the “seeds” of search engine optimization (SEO) that we sow today help your site rank better in the search engine results pages (SERPs) tomorrow.

The work I typically do includes writing compelling copy which contains highly targeted keywords that match what your would-be customers are searching for online. SEO also includes optimizing your site’s meta tags, category tags, page and post titles, images tags and others. It also means having a site with clean code, pages that load quickly and lots of other things.

When we plant and cultivate these seeds, we give your site longevity. Over time, you can pull a decent amount of traffic to your site just because it ranks well for certain search terms. Combine that with some active marketing such as a Google AdWords campaign, email blasts, or Facebook marketing and you can generate quality traffic for your site.

Keep in mind that it takes ongoing work to maintain your optimized pages, ...

Get it. . . “SEO” instead of “Sow” the seeds of victory. Yeah. I know you got it.

SEO the Seeds of Victory

Anyway, the “seeds” of search engine optimization (SEO) that we sow today help your site rank better in the search engine results pages (SERPs) tomorrow.

The work I typically do includes writing compelling copy which contains highly targeted keywords that match what your would-be customers are searching for online. SEO also includes optimizing your site’s meta tags, category tags, page and post titles, images tags and others. It also means having a site with clean code, pages that load quickly and lots of other things.

When we plant and cultivate these seeds, we give your site longevity. Over time, you can pull a decent amount of traffic to your site just because it ranks well for certain search terms. Combine that with some active marketing such as a Google AdWords campaign, email blasts, or Facebook marketing and you can generate quality traffic for your site.

Keep in mind that it takes ongoing work to maintain your optimized pages, particularly if you have a site that is updated with new content frequently. Consistent attention to ongoing optimization of newly added pages and blog posts helps to keep your site listed for its targeted keywords and phrases. And it’s tough work sometimes, particularly if you don’t have the time to do it all yourself.